


Spiralling

by LectorEl



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Depression, Dissociation, Gen, It's more likely than you think!, Suicidal Ideation, The author projecting their half a decade of unmedicated clinical depression on a character?, This is not a 'the old guard is so mean to Booker' fic, they have good and justified reasons to be mad, this is however a 'Booker is horrifically depressed and has compromised judgement' fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LectorEl/pseuds/LectorEl
Summary: Booker is waiting for death. He doesn’t have the energy to chase it.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 80





	Spiralling

They part after the job goes sour, Nicky and Joe one way, Andy another, and Booker to his usual safehouse, and his usual routine when alone.

It’s easier - harder - different when he’s with the others. They notice if Booker lets himself lapse into the comfort of dissociation. They force Booker to engage, to participate. They drag him along in their wake, imposing structure on the endless, empty expanse of time.

Booker loves them, he knows this. He just doesn’t feel it anymore. There’s nothing in him. He’s tired, and that exhaustion is the only thing with any grip. 

An observation: there’s only so long you can spend killing yourself before even that becomes exhausting. Booker is waiting for death. He doesn’t have the energy to chase it.

Booker found a balance, decades ago, for these blank expanses between missions - groceries, nonperishable, delivered once a month, to quiet the worst of the hunger pains; the water and electric bills set to auto-pay. He’d say he’s wallowing - except that even that sort of ruminating is too much work.

Booker sleeps, rises long enough to eat an energy bar or a protein shake, takes a drink straight from the faucet, goes back to bed. Dies a few times of alcohol withdrawal, because it’s easier than going out to buy more.

He sleeps, and wakes, dies, and wakes again. Time passes. He waits for Andy to contact him, tell him there’s another job, another mission to complete.

James Copley contacts him first, and Booker finds he has the energy to go chasing death one last time. It goes to shit, of course. Booker should know by now that nothing is ever easy.

The team sends him away. 100 years. Nicky’s influence, he thinks. Nicky has always forgiven too easily. Hopefully Joe will make them stick to it, keep Nile and Nicky from trying to bring him back in early. 

Booker isn’t someone they should trust anymore. Not now that someone has promised him an ending. The only thing Booker regrets is that Merrick got greedy. If the man could have contented himself with samples, with Booker, instead of grasping for more, Dr. Kozak would be working now on unraveling immortality.

He knows what he should feel - shame and self-loathing, regret at his betrayal, grief over the loss of his family. But Booker is empty, and Booker is tired, and all the world is as distant as his childrens’ graves.


End file.
